Yesterdays flurry of X-Factor info-graphics and studies report a positive correlation between social media, the viewing figures and the end result largely based on cumulative data such as likes, followers and views. Interesting as this is, with a wealth of data publicly available on Social Media platforms such as Twitter, does an over reliance upon automated quantitative stats mean we are missing out on more robust and reliable analysis? Read More »

Gordon Macmillan started the debate last month with a piece about the strongly conflicting views of views of two journalists on the role of social media. The piece itself and the ensuing comments raised an interesting paradox, and one which social media professionals are all too aware of. Many journalists, and indeed brands seem to fall into the ‘love’ or ‘hate’ category when it comes to social media – either thinking it has to be at the forefront of everything they do, or that it’s single-handedly destroying the essence of their industry.

People seem to get so het up about the social media question that they manage to overlook what its role actually is – to create, share and deliver content that is not bound by the traditional rules of mass media. The immediacy of this content, both in terms of time and availability, means that platforms such as Twitter, Facebook (and indeed Audioboo) provide a more direct route to people than traditional news reporting. However, this doesn’t mean that every single story should automatically be farmed out via any and every form of social media available. Content created for a newspaper, for example, may not work in a social environment, and journalists spending hours syndicating the same content across all platforms might miss crucial stories. Jack Lessonberry’s reaction to the memo, while a little wide of the mark, is understandable when you take this into consideration. Read More »

Digital marketing is making a transition, from a direct response medium to one that engages and builds brands. The sheer amount of time of spent on the internet is the biggest driver behind marketing spend. However, for many marketers, trackable ROI remains key. Video and social media are experiencing huge growth right now, bringing the emotional engagement of traditional media, together with the measurability of digital.

There’s no denying the health of digital marketing in the UK, which grew 13.5% in the first half of 2011 to £2.26 billon according to the Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) most recent online ad spend figures. Read More »

My alarm clock woke me up today 30 minutes earlier than usual. It was a bit of shock. But then I realised that it had linked to the traffic road reports and found out there were traffic jams on my usual route to work; so it knew I’d need longer to get to work. When I got in my car, it drove me a different way than usual as it had communicated with the road infrastructure and found an unusual amount of potholes in the roads and didn’t want to get damaged. As I entered the staff car park at work my coffee pot automatically turned on in my office. It knew I’d need a cup of strong coffee after my early wake up call. I met Bob in reception and congratulated him on the golf trophy he had won. I didn’t know anything about Bob’s performance until I received details of it through my contact lens. My emails had started downloading by the time I got to my desk, the spam had been automatically removed and the obvious replies to emails had been made. In fact, my job was done, so I drank my coffee and called Bob to see if he wanted a game of golf. Read More »

Manchester is once again in a state of revolution. At the turn of the 19th century, the city led the Industrial Revolution with a boom in textile manufacturing. Today, Manchester is ushering in the Digital Revolution as a leading media hub, by developing MediaCityUK with like the BBC Future Media & Technology, ITV and SIS and wider across the city with Code Computer Love, McCann, Magnetic North, Siemens. Just as the Industrial Revolution caused a fundamental sociological shift in the way people perceived the world around them, the shift from an analogue to a digital society is changing the communicative structures of the world because people are connected to each other in new and, importantly, more ways. Read More »

BuzzFeed the site best known for offbeat stories (“what cats want for Christmas”), gossip and viral videos has hired a star reporter from US politics site, Politico.com, with the aim of building what is being described as the “first real social news organization”.

Ben Smith, who was a senior political writer at Politico.com, will be editor-in-chief at BuzzFeed and will be responsible for building a news organisation that will produce original content and have a focus on how best to share this via the social web. Read More »

As Little Mix beat out Marcus Collins in Sunday’s night’s X Factor finale, predicted by social media, viewers turned towards Twitter in equal measure with the show’s judges when they decided how to vote.

A new study by digital agency Carat reveals an interesting trend with X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing viewers—specifically, that their trust has shifted away from traditional media influencers towards non-traditional media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

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